June 3 (June 15, new style) 1867 – born in the village of Gumnishchi, Vladimir Province, into the family of a zemstvo official. According to family tradition, their ancestors were Scottish or Scandinavian seamen who had settled in Russia; 1885 – published three poems in the journal “Zhivopisnoe obozrenie” (Survey of Painting), and attracted the attention of the writer V. G. Korolenko; 1886 - after graduating from gymnasium in Vladimir, he began the law faculty of Moscow University; 1887 – expelled from Moscow University for taking part in student disorders and exiled to the city of Shuia. After a year he was readmitted, but did not finish university due to a nervous illness; 1890 – he published his first volume of poetry in Iaroslavl’, at his own cost. The book was unsuccessful and Bal’mont destroyed almost the entire edition; 1892. – travelled to Scandinavia, after which he began translating Ibsen, Brandes, and others; 1893- translated and published a complete works of the English Romantic poet P. B. Shelley; 1894 – published his translation of F. V. Gorn’s “History of Scandinavian Literature,” as well as his first volume of poetry “Pod severnym nebom” (Under the Northern Sky); 1895 – his collection of poetry “V bezbrezhnosti” (In Boundlessness) and a two-volume translation of Edgar Allen Poe published; 1898 – the collection of poetry “Tishina” (Quiet) confirms his important place in contemporary literature; 1902 – leaves on a trip to many countries of Europe, the United States and Mexico. He returned to Moscow in the summer of 1905, where two new collections of poetry are publiched—“Liturgiia krasoty” (Liturgy of Beauty) and “Feinye skazki” (Fairy Tales); 1903 - publication of “Budem kak solntse” (Let's Be like the Sun), one of his most celebrated collections, and “Tol’ko liubov’” (Only Love); 1906 – 1907 – he responds to revolutionary events with the collections; “Stikhotvoreniia” (Poems) (1906, confiscated by the police) and “Pesni mstitielia” (Song of An Avenger) (1907, published in Paris, banned in Russia). He again left Russia and lived in France until 1913. His other collections of the 1900’s include: “Ptitsy v vozukhe” (Birds in the Air, 1908), “Khorovod vremeni” (Time’s Roundelay, 1908), “Zelenyi vertograd” (Green Garden, 1909), “Iasen’”(Ash Tree, 1916) и “Sonety solntsa, meda i luny” (Sonnets of the Sun, Honey, and the Moon, 1917); 1912 - voyage around the world (Canary Islands, Cape of Good Hope, Tasmania, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, Guinea, Indonesian islands, India); 1920 - with the help of A. Lunacharskii he received permission to leave Russia, and in June permanently emigrated with his wife and daughter; 1920 – 1940’s. – in emigration he published several collections of poetry: “Dar zemle” (Gift to the Earth, 1921), “Марево” (Mirage, 1922), “Moe – ei” (Mine – To Her, 1923), “Razdvinutye dali” (Distances Drawn Apart, 1929), “Severnoe siianie” (Northern Lights, 1931), “Golubaia podkova” (Blue Horseshoe, 1935), “Sevtosluzhenie” (Serving the Light, 1936-1937); 1923 – writes two autobiographical works, “Pod novym serpom” (Under a New Sickle) and “Vozdushnyi put’” (Aerial Path); December 24, 1942 – dies from pneumonia in a poorhouse run by Mother Maria (E. Iu. Kuz’mina-Karavaeva) not far from Paris.